Not to mention a phone number for technical support is a hell of alot faster than waiting a week for a goddamn email back.

Just as I suspected. You are nothing more than a troll. Didn't take long to figure that out. I have never in my ten years with Steam had an issue with slow email replies. You aren't fooling anybody, so stop trying.

Not to mention a phone number for technical support is a hell of alot faster than waiting a week for a goddamn email back.

Just as I suspected. You are nothing more than a troll. Didn't take long to figure that out. I have never in my ten years with Steam had an issue with slow email replies. You aren't fooling anybody, so stop trying.

He's not wrong on that, they often take weeks to reply back, but it's no surprise considering how tiny their support team is

"Seriously, if a store has the gall to make money off of pushing baffling, pseudo-busted rubbish like Dark Shadows, or fundamentally broken garbage like Game Tycoon 1.5, it should damn well take responsibility for it." Actually, since the dawn of mankind, that has always laid on the backs of the consumers (known then as the peasants.) Businesses have been peddling snake oil since it has existed, but I don't have any in my home.

The Great Game Guarantee allows you to return EA digital game downloads (PC/Mac) purchased on Origin for a full refund within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from your date of purchase or within seven days from the game's release date if you pre-purchased/pre-ordered, whichever comes first.

The Great Game Guarantee help article has information on how to request a refund. For full details, see the Origin Great Game Guarantee Policy.

^^Origin's refund policy.

In any case, Steam is the one I'd most like to see improved as it's by far the marketplace/platform we're most invested in.

That's only for games from EA. GOG however offers refunds for 30 days for all games.

Steam is way ahead of the competition, if you dont like a game, DONT BUY IT! You are not being forced to, early access games all have big warnings on them. The self entitlement of some gamers these days is hilarious. If you dont want em don't buy em but why should others miss out on games they like because you are feeling entitled?

By this shitty logic, Netflix is responsible for you watching Birdemic. The gas station is responsible for you buying a 50c hotdog. The bookstore is responsible for you reading Twilight. ITunes is responsible for you listening to Bieber.

Sorry, it's not the retailer's responsibility to police every single game that it releases. You as the consumer should be doing your own research or using basic common sense to avoid the bad products.

By that shitty logic you might indeed think I was blaming Valve for convincing people to buy bad games.

As the consumer I'd appreciate it if I could more easily find games that are of interest to me. Valve doesn't have to keep making steps in this direction, but if they want to make a better user experience they should probably consider it.

This idea that if it's not their responsibility, if it's deemed by some arbitrary unwritten law that they don't have to or are forced to do it, then they shouldn't; effin bizarre 'tis. I don't know why you'd be against the idea of surfacing games of interest to begin with, but then to back it up with the argument that "they don't have to do it!" is truly baffling.

Yes, research, you should do it. But opposing implementations that'd make it more convenient is nonsense.

Would you prefer Steam beamed gamma rays directly through your brain waves to determine what games you would like and to what exact degree you would like them?

Calling Steam "shit" just because they haven't implemented a couple minor conveniences that you believe are mandatory, when they could continue working on improvements to the library, servers, interface, and other, actual conveniences worth working on, is stupid. Are you forgetting that Valve is still a pretty small company? They do need to have realistic priorities you know.

And no, no one is saying that Steam should not try to include the best shopping experience they possibly can, we're simply saying that your idea that people might mistakenly purchase a bad game and that is completely Steam's burden to bear, is bullshit. Steam is including metacritic, front page user reviews, genres, videos, pictures, and detailed feature-by-feature descriptions for most of the games, which is more than I can say for other online stores. Not to mention they are improving greatly on the front of allowing returns on certain games. Not really sure what else you're expecting them to do to save you from games you don't like.

I thought you meant in the context of the conversation I had with that other guy.

But I suppose I still stand by that statement. Games that are buggy, unfinished, otherwise fundamentally broken or not delivering on what was promised, should absolutely be eligible for refunds without having to incite a shitstorm a la War Z. For obvious reasons this would exclude Early Access games. I also think games of impressively low quality should be eligible. If GOG and Origin can offer blanket refunds, then so can Steam. GOG is extremely generous (30 days) and I'm sincerely hoping people won't exploit it to a detrimental enough degree. Origin's policy is something I reckon is sensible enough to become a standard. 7 days from date of purchase/availability, or 24 hours from when you first launch the game. That's essentially what I ask of Valve. Why is this something you oppose?

I thought you meant in the context of the conversation I had with that other guy.

But I suppose I still stand by that statement. Games that are buggy, unfinished, otherwise fundamentally broken or not delivering on what was promised, should absolutely be eligible for refunds without having to incite a shitstorm a la War Z. For obvious reasons this would exclude Early Access games. I also think games of impressively low quality should be eligible. If GOG and Origin can offer blanket refunds, then so can Steam. GOG is extremely generous (30 days) and I'm sincerely hoping people won't exploit it to a detrimental enough degree. Origin's policy is something I reckon is sensible enough to become a standard. 7 days from date of purchase/availability, or 24 hours from when you first launch the game. That's essentially what I ask of Valve. Why is this something you oppose?

Disagree.

even more so on the phrase of ...not delivering on what was promised... I cant express how many debates on ForumFall there were on this subject. Its far to subjective.

'I want a refund because its not open world'

or

'I want a refund because elves are obviously overpowered and its a bug'

By this shitty logic, Netflix is responsible for you watching Birdemic. The gas station is responsible for you buying a 50c hotdog. The bookstore is responsible for you reading Twilight. ITunes is responsible for you listening to Bieber.

Sorry, it's not the retailer's responsibility to police every single game that it releases. You as the consumer should be doing your own research or using basic common sense to avoid the bad products.

You can't get a refund from the store, why would you expect it from Steam? When you walk in to Best Buy or Gamestop, do they provide you with all the info you need to make a sound purchase? No, so why do you expect it from Steam. It is your job to research what you are buying before buying. Don't get all pissy and start crying over Steam not doing your research for you just because you are too lazy to do it yourself. You deserve to buy shit games and you deserve to be stuck with them if you are that damn lazy that you don't want to research what you buy and expect somebody else to do it for you. So in reality, it isn't Steam = Shit, it is you = shit. You are right about one thing. Everybody's capable of making a bad purchase. Being a lazy ass that doesn't want to research what he/she is buying greatly ups those odds.

Physical stores do not understand what a game is. They'll generally only replace or refund if the thing's physically broken. But you and I are more knowledgeable than that, right?

And as I've said, GOG and Origin have already taken steps to improve their refund policies, or you know, have any at all. I don't necessarily expect Steam to follow suit, but I certainly very much would like them to.

Have you ever used sites which compile and present/filter data in ways aiming to provide users with relevant information? For instance a review aggregate or price comparison site? Did you find them helpful? Would you rather they didn't exist?

This insulting and chastising over suggesting improvements in the form of the front page allowing you to surface games in ways that are relevant to your own preferences, is quite odd. Valve has all this data, they know what games you've bought, for how long you've played them, what games you've bothered reviewing or recommending, what's on your wish list, what you've tagged, the specs of your PC, etc. But none of it is used to tailor the front page to you. In my original post I talked only about quality, but since then I've come to realize that it makes sense for it to be about more than that. Gears is a 9, but I don't give a shit. You could have charts based on ratings, and this personalized feed. And the feed could take ratings into consideration, price, friends expressing interest, exclude games considered buggy, whatever. There's a lot you could do. But I guess it's lazy shit ass, so let's not.

You can't get a refund from the store, why would you expect it from Steam? When you walk in to Best Buy or Gamestop, do they provide you with all the info you need to make a sound purchase? No, so why do you expect it from Steam. It is your job to research what you are buying before buying. Don't get all pissy and start crying over Steam not doing your research for you just because you are too lazy to do it yourself. You deserve to buy shit games and you deserve to be stuck with them if you are that damn lazy that you don't want to research what you buy and expect somebody else to do it for you. So in reality, it isn't Steam = Shit, it is you = shit. You are right about one thing. Everybody's capable of making a bad purchase. Being a lazy ass that doesn't want to research what he/she is buying greatly ups those odds.

Physical stores do not understand what a game is. They'll generally only replace or refund if the thing's physically broken. But you and I are more knowledgeable than that, right?

And as I've said, GOG and Origin have already taken steps to improve their refund policies, or you know, have any at all. I don't necessarily expect Steam to follow suit, but I certainly very much would like them to.

Have you ever used sites which compile and present/filter data in ways aiming to provide users with relevant information? For instance a review aggregate or price comparison site? Did you find them helpful? Would you rather they didn't exist?

This insulting and chastising over suggesting improvements in the form of the front page allowing you to surface games in ways that are relevant to your own preferences, is quite odd. Valve has all this data, they know what games you've bought, for how long you've played them, what games you've bothered reviewing or recommending, what's on your wish list, what you've tagged, the specs of your PC, etc. But none of it is used to tailor the front page to you. In my original post I talked only about quality, but since then I've come to realize that it makes sense for it to be about more than that. Gears is a 9, but I don't give a shit. You could have charts based on ratings, and this personalized feed. And the feed could take ratings into consideration, price, friends expressing interest, exclude games considered buggy, whatever. There's a lot you could do. But I guess it's lazy shit ass, so let's not.

Lol you are still going huh. Sorry, but I am not bothering with reading that. You have yet to say anything worth reading in this thread, so I am not wasting my time reading this. Sorry you are too lazy to get off your ass and do your own research before you buy. This is an issue you have that I do not.

"Seriously, if a store has the gall to make money off of pushing baffling, pseudo-busted rubbish like Dark Shadows, or fundamentally broken garbage like Game Tycoon 1.5, it should damn well take responsibility for it." Actually, since the dawn of mankind, that has always laid on the backs of the consumers (known then as the peasants.) Businesses have been peddling snake oil since it has existed, but I don't have any in my home.

If businesses are known to be dishonest, that's reason for requesting better protection for consumers. If you possess the impressive insight to never make a bad deal, then that's good for you. Doesn't prevent it being an issue for others.

Steam is way ahead of the competition, if you dont like a game, DONT BUY IT! You are not being forced to, early access games all have big warnings on them. The self entitlement of some gamers these days is hilarious. If you dont want em don't buy em but why should others miss out on games they like because you are feeling entitled?

To be 100% honest, this thread = shit

Steam is distinctly behind the competition in terms of refund policies.

The other thing I've brought up has to do with it making it easier to estimate the chance of you liking a game. Then if it looks like you might, you buy it, and the thing crashes constantly, you're able to get a refund without any hassle.I have absolutely no idea what you're on about here.

By this shitty logic, Netflix is responsible for you watching Birdemic. The gas station is responsible for you buying a 50c hotdog. The bookstore is responsible for you reading Twilight. ITunes is responsible for you listening to Bieber.

Sorry, it's not the retailer's responsibility to police every single game that it releases. You as the consumer should be doing your own research or using basic common sense to avoid the bad products.

By that shitty logic you might indeed think I was blaming Valve for convincing people to buy bad games.

As the consumer I'd appreciate it if I could more easily find games that are of interest to me. Valve doesn't have to keep making steps in this direction, but if they want to make a better user experience they should probably consider it.

This idea that if it's not their responsibility, if it's deemed by some arbitrary unwritten law that they don't have to or are forced to do it, then they shouldn't; effin bizarre 'tis. I don't know why you'd be against the idea of surfacing games of interest to begin with, but then to back it up with the argument that "they don't have to do it!" is truly baffling.

Yes, research, you should do it. But opposing implementations that'd make it more convenient is nonsense.

Would you prefer Steam beamed gamma rays directly through your brain waves to determine what games you would like and to what exact degree you would like them?

Calling Steam "shit" just because they haven't implemented a couple minor conveniences that you believe are mandatory, when they could continue working on improvements to the library, servers, interface, and other, actual conveniences worth working on, is stupid. Are you forgetting that Valve is still a pretty small company? They do need to have realistic priorities you know.

And no, no one is saying that Steam should not try to include the best shopping experience they possibly can, we're simply saying that your idea that people might mistakenly purchase a bad game and that is completely Steam's burden to bear, is bullshit. Steam is including metacritic, front page user reviews, genres, videos, pictures, and detailed feature-by-feature descriptions for most of the games, which is more than I can say for other online stores. Not to mention they are improving greatly on the front of allowing returns on certain games. Not really sure what else you're expecting them to do to save you from games you don't like.

The answer is no. Tampering with people's brainwaves... it just raises too many questions.

They've already implemented customer reviews, tagging and all these other things you mention and I mentioned in my first post, to help people more easily discover games they care for, and that's appreciated. What I'm requesting is they continue working on the improvements they've already done. I'm not saying they have to, I am saying they should do whatever they can to provide the circumstances necessary to give this user-curated marketplace the lowest possible risk of turning into what every other one of those seem to turn into. It's about curating, as well as helping guide users. And with Valve handing the curating over to us, that becomes one of the things they should prioritize. Perhaps what Valve has done thus far will be enough, but it never hurts to consider what more could be done. I'm not gonna speculate how much work, how long, how much resources, what to prioritize etc. because I have no idea and that would therefore be pointless.

A proper refund policy is a thing I'll say needs to happen.Doesn't need to incorporate all games, but it needs to incorporate all games, or you'll end up with a dwarf contract.

Steam is way ahead of the competition, if you dont like a game, DONT BUY IT! You are not being forced to, early access games all have big warnings on them. The self entitlement of some gamers these days is hilarious. If you dont want em don't buy em but why should others miss out on games they like because you are feeling entitled?

To be 100% honest, this thread = shit

Steam is distinctly behind the competition in terms of refund policies.

The other thing I've brought up has to do with it making it easier to estimate the chance of you liking a game. Then if it looks like you might, you buy it, and the thing crashes constantly, you're able to get a refund without any hassle.

I have absolutely no idea what you're on about here.

honestly..

all one has to do is type in 'lets play [name of game here]' and you will find out more about the game that you can for any other type of product on the planet.

i'm not a fan of early access games being featured prominently on the front page, they're not even finished - sure, have them, but hide them away.

i'm ok with the user reviews, I'd prefer if they took away the metacritic numbers tbh, and did not add any more space for 'professional', or critic reviews. i mean, which critic? why not a different one? i say - do not give these guys a pedestal. if they want to review something, they can create a steam account and post a user review like anyone else - egalitarianism FTW.

the refund policy is an obvious one, steam are pretty much a one-way-street with money.

the overall layout of steam could be improved. i think they could better utilise the screen real estate on widescreen monitors.

What isn't coming to Steam these days? Some week ago god damned Sudeki arrived. So that's great, or something. In theory, ease of access for developers and publishers is a good thing, more creative people being able to make more games available. But that's never how that story ends is it? Just look at any open games market thus far. With the floodgates open, any ol turd will float by. There's nothing inherently wrong with bad games being allowed to exist, as long as it's easy to just slurge those the fuck out of the way to get at the good ones. And that's the problem that needs to be surmounted. Valve's done some things, tagging, reviews, recommendations, but is it enough?

I think perhaps the most important step that needs to be taken is for Valve to start offering a proper returns policy. The idea of waiting and checking for user impressions is sound, but then if everyone does that, there's no users to give impressions. And with the Steam customer reviews becoming increasingly relied on as a seal of approval , people will try to abuse it. So if you end up paying for a broken piece of shit you ought to be able to get a refund. And not Steam wallet credit, a proper refund. That way people won't get punished for being willing to give games a chance. And hopefully it'll help give less known, unshitty games a better chance of establishing themselves rather than getting flushed away in a flood of refuse. Remember how Recettear did pretty well in 2010? Would it do as well today? Would critics be as willing to give it a look?

Seriously, if a store has the gall to make money off of pushing baffling, pseudo-busted rubbish like Dark Shadows, or fundamentally broken garbage like Game Tycoon 1.5, it should damn well take responsibility for it.

Another thing is the data that drives charts and featured slots. The stuff that's on the front page. Quality isn't part of it.

Where's "Highest Critic Rated", "Highest Consumer Rated" etc.?

Advertising space. Featured slots are worthless at best for consumers, actively harmful at worst.

Valve's smart people, hopefully they'll better help us spend our money wisely and rejoice at the amount of variety rather than solely lowering standards all around.

You're on a video game review site.... complaining about buying games that aren't good....

Lol you are still going huh. Sorry, but I am not bothering with reading that. You have yet to say anything worth reading in this thread, so I am not wasting my time reading this. Sorry you are too lazy to get off your ass and do your own research before you buy. This is an issue you have that I do not.

i'm not a fan of early access games being featured prominently on the front page, they're not even finished - sure, have them, but hide them away.

i have to agree with this to some extent. people simply don't seem to understand the concept behind them no matter how clearly they try to express it.

i don't like funding early access games in general either, since there's no quarantee that you will ever recieve a solid product. i mainly fund (or i might even use the term pre-order) games that has industry veterans involved with them.

Many of these stores operate under policies that say you're purchasing a plastic box with a disc inside, games cannot be broken unless the disc is. Is this also what you believe?Piracy is not a concern since Steam is DRM.

As mentioned, there are digital stores which acknowledge that games are games, and offer refunds if they're busted rubbish. Hopefully Steam will become one of them.

@-Rhett81- said:

You're on a video game review site.... complaining about buying games that aren't good....

You can't get a refund from the store, why would you expect it from Steam? When you walk in to Best Buy or Gamestop, do they provide you with all the info you need to make a sound purchase? No, so why do you expect it from Steam. It is your job to research what you are buying before buying. Don't get all pissy and start crying over Steam not doing your research for you just because you are too lazy to do it yourself. You deserve to buy shit games and you deserve to be stuck with them if you are that damn lazy that you don't want to research what you buy and expect somebody else to do it for you. So in reality, it isn't Steam = Shit, it is you = shit. You are right about one thing. Everybody's capable of making a bad purchase. Being a lazy ass that doesn't want to research what he/she is buying greatly ups those odds.

Physical stores do not understand what a game is. They'll generally only replace or refund if the thing's physically broken. But you and I are more knowledgeable than that, right?

This is completely incorrect. Every store around here has huge policy signs EVERYWHERE in the PC sections saying "If you open this product, you can't return it". It's any major retailer's policy, and typically their policies are built right into their computer systems, making it so they can't accidentally refund products (due to their non-refund category in their pricing systems). You can't argue "oh well, you might get an ignorant person who will refund it". That's bullshit. You can't even buy any PC games within my area unless it's in the electronics section of a major retailer outlet - and they know their policies very well. You'd have to find some small mom-and-pa store selling PC games, and personally I haven't found any. And guess what - Steam occasionally slides people refunds, so it's not exclusive to physical stores anyways.

Ya I wont pre-order or buy a game new on steam ever again. I was sold a broken falsely advertised product, at full price and told basically to fuck off while the entire community screamed faul, and complained it was a broken falsely advertised product. They pick and choose who gets refunds, and you have to write a series of very serious and thought out emails in almost legalese to even have them think about it. The company has a long way to go policy wise before it can become a living room friendly company. People aren't going to put up with a no refund policy, when being sold crap that doesn't work from the box under their tv they will simply say fuck you and move onto the company with better policies and customer service. Look at amazon. Make your customers happy and they will return again and again.

"By this shitty logic, Netflix is responsible for you watching Birdemic. The gas station is responsible for you buying a 50c hotdog. The bookstore is responsible for you reading Twilight. ITunes is responsible for you listening to Bieber.

Sorry, it's not the retailer's responsibility to police every single game that it releases. You as the consumer should be doing your own research or using basic common sense to avoid the bad products."

Yes it is the retailers responsibility to police and manage their products. If you walked into a wall mart and purchased a baby stroller that malfunctioned due to a common problem you have the right to a refund, and if harm came to your child and they knew about the problem you'd have a legal case to sue them. If I purchase a computer and it doesn't work, in most countries around the world I'm entitled to my money back or another of the same item I purchased that functions.

Steam or valve has even gone as far as refusing customers in the EU a refund until they specifically quote the law that says a company must provide a refund for a broken or falsely advertised software. It's the responsibility of any store front to properly police the items they sell for quality, other wise you'd still be buying led based paint, and asbestos would be in all your walls and piping.

If you look at the steam reviews for those games, all of them are negative. Except for Earth Year 2066, that has a positive review, from someone who only owns 1 game: earth year 2066 (so that should arouse suspicion)

However, there have to be people buying them in order for there to be negative reviews... Is Steam the one responsible for people buying the game even if the screenshots and videos on the store page looks like utter shit ? I dunno.

Though I do think steam has some responsibility when they make 1/3rd of pure scams/games that are completely broken and games that are so broken that you know there will never be a good game coming from it.

It's Valve's responsibility to make sure that the games they sell actually work and that there is no false advertising. If any normal store would sell so much broken products or has so much misleading information about the products, they'd out of business.

What is to keep someone from getting a game, playing it and then trying to return it "because it sucks" and getting a free game rental? Nothing. If people were allowed to return games, steam would charge more. Maybe you should get some outside input about if a game is good or not before you buy it and you won't run into this issue.